Officially, they’ve already been sworn in.

But a public oath of office ceremony for new members of the Tacoma City Council — including Marilyn Strickland in her new role as mayor — is planned for the first council meeting of 2010 tomorrow at 5 pm.

The face of the council is dramatically altered from last year, as four members — Connie Ladenburg, Mike Lonergan, Rick Talbert and Mayor Bill Baarsma — all hit term-limits on their respective council seats and are gone. In addition, Julie Anderson vacated her seat in November after winning election to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office, and Strickland won election to the Mayor’s office, causing her to abandon her council position, too.

Joining returning members Spiro Manthou, Lauren Walker and Jake Fey on the dais tomorrow will be three new members — Marty Campbell, , Joe Lonergan and Victoria Woodards
— while Strickland will take up the gavel left by Baarsma.

Among the council’s first major order of business for the New Year is filling the vacancies left by Anderson and Strickland. With an appointment process already underway, the city has released a schedule that expects both replacements to be named on Jan. 14, or no later than Jan. 19.

State law allows council members-elect to be sworn in prior to taking office. And although city spokesman Rob McNair-Huff said he wasn’t sure as of this morning whether the new members were sworn in prior to the New Year, “they’re  all officially serving at this point,” he said.

(You wouldn’t know it, though, if you looked at the City of Tacoma’s City Council web page, which at least for the moment, still provides last year’s council information. Fey, who won re-election to a second council term in November’s election, technically must be sworn-in, too, unlike the other returning council members, who are in the midst of their terms, not starting a new one.)

Tomorrow evening’s public swearing-in ceremony during the year’s first meeting affords the public to observe a changing of the guard of  city government and hear their elected-officials take the oaths of office, McNair-Huff said.